Monday, December 05, 2005

Learning to ride a bike at 11

My mom bought me my first bike at 11 years, I remember I was in the 6th grade. I previously won a bike in the 3rd grade, by winning 1st place city wide for the Fire prevention poster contest. I rode my bike for all of about 20 minutes and got a flat. It being West Texas and all, we had lots of stickers in our yard. We chained the bike up behind our trailer, and it stayed there until it was eventually stolen.

So, I got this 10-speed bike for Christmas, my uncle spent all day putting it together. There were still some bolts left over at the end, so I wasn't confident that the bike wouldn't fall apart. We go outside to ride. Keep in mind that I'm 11 years old and don't know how to ride a bike, much less a 10-speed. I fell and fell and fell, my knees were so scraped up, I've got scares to prove it. Plus the pedals had spikes on them, so whenever my foot would slip the pedal would turn and hit the back of my ankle. Ouch.

Needless to say, I had fun on my bike, although the number of accidents that occured are too many to count. Although one comes to mind..

I was in high school, riding to my friend's house. I hit some gravel, and crashed into a fire hydrant. I flipped over the bike on the grass. I picked the bike up and noticed that the chain had fallen off. Well I had experience on putting it back on of course. I just jumped back on and took off. This bike eventually had to retire, because of another accident that bent the wheel. I can not wait until we buy our girls their first bikes.

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